“It’s weird,” said Gilles, squeezing his way through to Bruno with two glasses of red wine and handing one to him. “My teaser piece on the nuclear stuff ran on the website yesterday and got almost zero reaction. But this morning’s article on the great train robbery has really started something. There was so much traffic that it nearly crashed the website. My editor’s ecstatic.”
“That’s another dinner you owe me,” said Bruno.
“I know, but I’ve been working nonstop.”
“That’s not what I hear. The word is that you were dining with a beautiful brunette at my favorite restaurant last night. Hand in hand, is what I heard.”
“Do you know everything that goes on around here?”
Bruno grinned at him and clinked their glasses together. “She’s a fine woman, and you’re a lucky man. But watch yourself; if you trifle with her, you’ll have me to deal with, and you’ll wish you were back in Sarajevo.”
“Trifling is not what I had in mind, Bruno. I think I’m smitten.”
“She’s a serious woman, and she’s also the best doctor we’ve ever had in this town, so don’t even think about trying to lure her away. Meanwhile, tell me about the reaction to your Neuvic article.”
“A couple of deputies have called for a parliamentary inquiry, the Banque de France is under pressure to hold a press conference, and the Socialists have issued a statement denying that they got any of the money.”
“Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied,” Bruno said with a chuckle.
“But something else has come up you ought to know about. I’ve had an e-mail from Paul Murcoing. It came through on my phone just now as I was coming into the mairie, and there’s a big document attached. Can we get out of this crowd and find a quiet place to read it?”
Bruno led the way back to his office, noting with approval that Gilles managed to pick up two full glasses as he ducked and darted through the thickening crowd. He turned on his own computer and gestured for Gilles to take the chair and use the big screen to read whatever Paul had sent.
It began with an e-mail, sent to the electronic address listed for Gilles on the Paris Match website, congratulating him for “bringing this scandal from the shadows of our history into the light of day.” But he’d only scratched the surface of the story, Paul went on, and the real truth had yet to emerge. Gilles clicked on the attachment to open the document.
“J’accuse,” read the title page, a cliché in French political journalism since Émile Zola had used it on the front page of L’Aurore to condemn the miscarriage of justice in the Dreyfus case. “I accuse André Malraux of theft from the people of France…I accuse the British government of using their influence over the Resistance to manipulate French politics in their own interests…I accuse the government of the United States…I accuse de Gaulle…I accuse François Mitterrand…” And on and on it went, some of it taken wholesale from the rants Paul had posted on the Resistance websites. The attack on British intelligence contained a scan of the concocted document Bruno had seen on Crimson’s iPad the previous evening.
“In the old days before the Internet,” said Gilles, “this sort of stuff used to be written in green ink with lots of underlinings and capital letters and usually finished up with claims they were being bugged through the fillings in their teeth. Except this British document looks new. Is this for real?”
Bruno made a quick decision. You either trusted a man or you didn’t. “No, it’s a fake,” he said. “It was cooked up and sent to Paul to smoke him out. It looks like he’s taking the bait.”
“Putain, this story gets better and better, and Paris Match is at the heart of it. A dead Resistance hero, his grandson on the run for murder, British spymaster faking documents to help the French capture him; all this and a conspiracy theory around the great train robbery. And he’s got his sister with him. You couldn’t make it up.”
“Are you planning to use some of this?” Bruno asked, a little nervous at the prospect of a media circus.
“You bet I am. This is a manhunt story made for the Internet age; and I’m in touch with the target. I’ll send out a tweet that he’s reached me and then do something for the website, but first I have to call Paris and brief them.”
“Just don’t say anything about the document being faked. And make me a couple of printouts of that rant of his for me.”
Bruno pulled J-J out of the party and took him onto the balcony outside the mayor’s office to brief him and give him one of the printouts.
“It was all your idea, J-J,” Bruno said. “You were the one who asked if we could set a trap for Murcoing. He didn’t show for the funeral, but he’s biting at this. We need to find out where the computer is that he used to e-mail Gilles. I’m betting he’s still in France and that camper with the Dutch plates was just a ruse.”
“You haven’t thought this through,” J-J replied, looking cross. “So he gets in touch with Crimson. What then?”
“Then I go to whatever rendezvous he nominates and bring him in. I wear a tracker in my shoes so you know where I am. You can have cars and a helicopter on standby somewhere close in case we need reinforcements.”
“This is a job for the Jaunes, not for you. They’re trained for this.”
“It has to be one man, someone who knows him.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know enough about him and his family to have a chance of talking him into giving himself up. With the Jaunes a shoot-out is just about guaranteed. Let’s find Crimson and see if he’s heard from Murcoing. He should be inside.”
They found the Englishman squeezed into a corner by the window that overlooked the River Vézère, trying to rescue Florence from the admiring attentions of the young officer who had led the guard of honor. J-J used his bulk to clear some space around them, introduced himself to the officer and asked him to give them some privacy. With the sensitive antennae of a lifetime in politics, the mayor realized that something important was happening and suddenly appeared alongside Bruno just as he was explaining that Murcoing had swallowed the bait.
“We won’t know if he’s contacted us until we can get to a computer and check that e-mail address I set up,” Florence said. “I’ve got my laptop in my bag.”
The mayor led the way to his own spacious office, which to Bruno’s knowledge had never yet been polluted by the presence of a computer. Florence sat down at his desk and fired up her machine.
“Don’t you need a plug or something?” the mayor asked.
Florence gave him a maternal look and shook her head before turning back to open the e-mails. “He’s sent something. He wants a phone number to reach you,” she told Crimson.
“We’d better buy you a disposable,” Bruno said. “He’s going to be expecting to hear an Englishman and someone who knows what he’s talking about.”
“Can you find out where he sent the e-mail from?” J-J asked.
“Not discreetly and we don’t want him to know we’re looking. But you should have experts with the equipment to track it.”
“The first thing I have to do now is call the juge d’instruction and tell him what’s happening,” said J-J. “He’s in charge of this inquiry.”
“But it isn’t just an inquiry anymore. It’s a manhunt,” said Bruno. “And we have some time. When Crimson answers that e-mail and gives Murcoing the phone number, we have to say that he’s just arrived in France, let’s say in Paris, coming in from London on the Eurostar train. It will take him some time to get down here so there’ll be no meeting until tomorrow. And Murcoing will need time to arrange the right place for a rendezvous.”
Crimson let out a short, excited laugh. “I’m almost beginning to enjoy this.”
26
“The English are mad,” said J-J as they drove to Bordeaux. “Did you hear Crimson say he was enjoying himself?”
Bruno had persuaded J-J to make a last appeal to the juge d’instruction on the need to interview Édouard Marty, even thoug
h the art squad had reported they could find nothing questionable in his accounts. J-J had been successful. Bruno was convinced that Édouard must know something more than the bland statement he’d given to the art squad. Yes, he had readily admitted, he was a director of the company that Francis Fullerton had founded, but he claimed to be a very minor shareholder and was concerned solely with the interior design side of the company, specializing in modern and minimalist design. He had nothing to do with the antiques, he said. And his work for Arch-Inter was simply a sideline to his own architecture practice and his teaching at the university.
But that left out the connection from a decade ago, when Paul Murcoing and Édouard Marty had been the boys at the swimming pool and Paul’s more recent portrait of Édouard as an adult. The link between Fullerton, Paul and Édouard might be important. An old friend from Paul’s youth, with whom he remained connected in Fullerton’s crooked business, was someone to whom a man on the run could turn for help or money or transport. And Bruno was dubious about Édouard’s protestations of innocence about the antiques trade. The website of the showroom in California had shown a lot of antiques, and Édouard’s office seemed to organize the shipping.
“How do you want to handle the questioning?” Bruno asked. He knew from experience that J-J was a relentless interrogator, and while his sheer bulk could intimidate most suspects he also had a subtle sense of the psychology and timing of the art of questioning. “Shall we do it the usual way, you play the tough guy, and I’m the understanding one, or what?”
“Probably,” grunted J-J from the passenger seat, flicking through a file of spreadsheets as his new aide, Josette, drove the big Peugeot along the autoroute to Bordeaux. “If this goes on much longer, it’s going to eat up ten percent of my investigation budget for the year. And with the new cuts there’s no reserve fund. Christ, look at the overtime for the plainclothes guys at the funeral, a complete waste of money.”
Bruno reminded J-J how many burglaries had been cleared up from the haul at the Corrèze farm.
“How are things between you and Isabelle?” J-J asked, closing his file and thrusting it into the overstuffed briefcase at his feet.
“Over,” said Bruno.
“That’s what you always say, but she keeps coming back.”
“Not anymore. She’s moving to Holland to join Eurojust; she has her interview Friday, but it sounds like a formality.”
“Putain, and I’ve just about persuaded the prefect to let her take my job when I retire. She’d come down to Périgueux as my deputy and then only have to wait a couple more years. I was hoping to get her down here before the election and all the backstabbing starts at her ministry. You’ve heard the rumors about that?”
“No, but I know what I’ve read in the papers. And who knows how the election will turn out? If this current bunch get reelected, there’ll be no change.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Even this minister of the interior’s own party is just looking for an excuse to get rid of him. He’s a liability. And this new superagency for intelligence that he’s set up is a menace. That’s why I want Isabelle out of it before the shit hits the fan.”
Bruno seldom talked national politics, partly because his interest was limited and partly because he reckoned there wasn’t that much difference between the parties. He remembered some graffiti he’d seen: IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO YOU VOTE FOR, THE GOVERNMENT ALWAYS GETS IN. But he’d rather talk politics than talk about Isabelle. The wound was still fresh.
“The problem is that Isabelle says she doesn’t want to come back here,” J-J went on.
“I think she means it,” Bruno said, when it was plain that J-J was waiting for him to respond.
“She’s under a lot of strain,” said Josette from the driver’s seat. It was the first time she had spoken. “She was crying in the ladies’ room the other day. It’s not like her at all.”
Bruno felt her cast an accusing glance at him in the rearview mirror. He turned his eyes away to look at the countryside flashing by the car. Josette had put the magnetized blue light on the roof, and they were doing a hundred and eighty kilometers an hour. At this speed, they’d be in Bordeaux in less than an hour.
When they reached the Pont d’Aquitaine, the great bridge over the River Garonne, J-J made a courtesy call to his Police Nationale counterpart in the Gironde département to explain his presence in the city. The juge d’instruction had already telephoned, J-J was told, and if any assistance was required Bordeaux would be happy to help. Josette’s GPS directed them to the plush suburb of Caudéran, and then to the most exclusive area of all where gardens backed onto the Parc Bordelais. Bruno and J-J exchanged glances, and J-J rubbed a finger and thumb together to signify the price of such a property as the car pulled up in the driveway of the distinctly grand maison de maître where Édouard lived and kept his showroom.
“Very tax efficient, home and showroom in one,” grumbled J-J. “I dislike this guy already.”
J-J hauled himself out of the car and up the wide steps to the double doors. A discreet brass plaque on one of the columns that flanked the doors read ARCH-INTER.
“Commissaire Jalipeau and Chief of Police Courrèges to see Monsieur Marty,” he announced to the elegant young woman in black silk who answered the doorbell. Behind her, the hallway was uniformly white—the stairs, the tiles, the walls and woodwork and the single tall-backed wooden chair that was the only furniture.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked coldly.
“Do you want an appointment with the inside of a jail cell, mademoiselle?”
“It’s all right, Clarisse,” came a voice from the upper landing, and Édouard appeared. “May I help you, gentlemen?”
“Where do you want to start being questioned, here or in police headquarters? Since I suspect you’ll end up in custody, it might save time if we went straight there.”
“Let me see if I can help you here,” Édouard replied calmly, descending the staircase as if making an entrance. He was wearing a black suit over a T-shirt so white that it gleamed. “I thought this had all been settled with your colleagues from the art squad.”
“They’re not colleagues. They’re specialists who sip tea and make polite small talk about Monet and Manet and money. I deal in murder and violence, and that’s what I want to question you about.”
Édouard led them into a large room, opposite the one to which Clarisse returned. It too was all in white except for a strikingly red chaise longue with chrome legs at one side of the fireplace and two very modern chrome-and-black-leather chairs facing it. A block of polished steel sat between them to serve as a table, and inside the large fireplace stood an African carving of a woman with row upon row of breasts descending the length of her torso. Above it hung a bizarre and multicolored modern tapestry of jazzy abstract shapes from which hung festoons of blue and yellow fabric.
“Where is your old boyfriend Paul Murcoing?” J-J began.
“I have no idea. I haven’t seen him for several weeks.”
“Where were you last Tuesday afternoon and evening?” J-J was referring to the time around Fullerton’s murder.
“I think I was out of town with clients. It will be in my diary.”
“Have you communicated with Paul in the last week in any way?”
Édouard paused and examined his fingernails. “A couple of phone calls, perhaps, and some e-mails, all to do with business.”
“You’ll have no objection to our going through your phone bills and e-mails?” J-J’s aggressive delivery made clear that he was not asking a question.
“Perhaps I’d better discuss that with my lawyer.”
“Discuss it all you want, I’ve got an order from the juge.” J-J waved the document he’d obtained from Bernard Ardouin and turned to Bruno. “Call Josette in and tell her to get that computer from the secretary and have a look around for any more. Tell her to bring me any mobile phones she finds.”
“Don’t I know you?” asked Édouard, study
ing Bruno.
“The last time we met you were naked and your friends’ fathers had beaten the hell out of you. That was at the vacation home where you and Paul Murcoing and Francis Fullerton were first together.”
Édouard nodded. “I remember. You pestered my parents and my school friends until you got bored and gave up.”
“You’re wrong,” J-J said. “He never gives up. That’s why he’s here. But compared with me, he’s a pussycat. Now, about your little playmate Paul…”
Bruno went outside to call in Josette from the car. She was scanning a list of numbers on the screen of her own phone when Bruno passed on J-J’s instructions. She handed him the phone.
“I just downloaded his phone records from France Télécom. He had a lot of calls in the last week from a number that looks like a disposable phone and some more from public phones, paid for with one of those cards you can buy.”
She slipped on a pair of evidence gloves and went into the house and into Clarisse’s room. Bruno heard angry female voices as he handed Josette’s phone to J-J, who began scanning through the France Télécom records.
“You get a lot of calls from public phones, do you?” J-J inquired. “Only in the last few days. I wonder who that could have been. Wouldn’t have been the man we’re hunting for murder, would it?”
“I don’t know where Paul was calling from, but yes, he has called several times in recent days.”
“What about?”
“Business, the legal position of the company after the death of Monsieur Fullerton, that sort of thing.”
“Did you discuss anything else?”
The Resistance Man Page 23